From: John Burgeson (burgythree@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 16:06:55 EST
Jason wrote, in part: "I was telling him that to believe that God created a
young creation that bore the marks of an ancient one would be deceptive, and
God does not deceive. "
On what basis would one conclude that God does not deceive? It is clear from
the biblical text that he told Moses to deceive Pharoah just before the
exodus by advising Moses to tell Pharaoh a half truth -- that the Hebrews
wanted to go out of Egypt to worship -- when the intent was to never return.
"I was wondering if any of you had considered the following:
God is good by nature, and whatever he does, if he does it, is good. God
is incapable of evil actions. When God does something in our lives or in
the world that we might think of as wrong, evil, or bad, we are in error.
God is unable to act in this way. If we think that he has, we must remember
that he is the standard of rightness and holiness. We are flawed. Whatever
he does, it is, because of his nature, perfect and right. Therefore, if God
did create with an
appearance of age, that action is not deceptive or wrong, as it is an action
of the perfectly righteous God. Even if it is deceptive, that deception is
not wrong; it is righteous. "
That idea has been considered. It is a fairly vital link in my own
theological thinking that says, the literal text apparently to the contrary,
that God did not command the slaughter of infants in I Sam 15.
In the case of origins, however, the deception would have to be monstrous,
involving all sorts of secondary (and tertiary) miracles. But it is,
nevertheless, a theory which cannot be disproved. See page 2,section 4 of my
web site for two essays on Gosse's OMPHALOS, which advocates this position.
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Mar 29 2003 - 16:07:32 EST